Feet apart, I have been bitten in some exotic places. In the Rocky Mountains,
where the little monsters seem to be bigger and worse than anywhere else, they
have bitten my legs through heavy blue jeans. In Ontario, my back was always the
favourite feeding ground. In Pakistan and Bangladesh, where I was roused from
the first few minutes of sleep by that awful high-pitched whine and spent much
of the night splatting distended mosquitoes, my arms and hands were the main
target. Mosquitoes, though, have never gone for my feet.

Only one person I know attracts biting insects more than me. This is a former
colleague—she was an excellent companion for field work, because she
always lured the biting midges, mossies and whatever else was in the air. I
never needed insect repellent when working near her, unless she put some on. I
knew immediately she had, because my blissfully bite-free environment was
suddenly filled with hostile insects, and I would feel that awful tickling
sensation that indicated some voracious insect was getting its biting parts into
me. As far as I am aware, my colleague did not have smelly feet either, though I
cannot be absolute certain—it wasn’t that sort of relationship, you
understand.

Mosquitoes, I subsequently learnt, are for much of their lives vegetarian,
obtaining energy from sugars in plant juices. The adult males live on this diet
all their lives, as do the females of some species. But the females of the
anopheline and culicine subfamilies need protein to produce their eggs, and they
get it from the blood of vertebrates—such as me.

Being singled out as a source of protein for some broody member of the
Culicidae, and playing my unwilling role in creating the next generation of
winged tormentors, would not be so bad if they did not cause me so much
discomfort.

Unfortunately, I am cursed twice over—not only do I attract more than
my fair share of bites, I react badly to them. A single bite will often cause a
reddening and swelling over a hand-sized patch of skin, while companions who do
get bitten at the same time suffer nothing worse than a small pimple. On a
couple of occasions in Canada, a bite just above the ankle left me with a leg
that was as wide as my knee all the way down.

This has set me thinking. The irritation is caused by injected mosquito
saliva, which prevents the victim’s blood from clotting. Evolution has modified
the mouth parts of mosquitoes to form the piercing and liquid-sucking proboscis,
and the saliva to act as an anticoagulant. Both these developments are
beneficial to the mosquito. But what benefit does the mosquito get from causing
pain to its food supply? I can think of none, which suggests that this
particular piece of evolution has been going on in the victim.

Mosquitoes can transmit numerous diseases, including malaria. Ignoring
mosquitoes is therefore, in evolutionary terms, A Bad Thing for the victim.
Evolution usually steers us away from Bad Things by the simple expedient of
making us associate them with pain or discomfort. Could it be, therefore, that
the discomfort felt by the sensitive ones among us after being bitten by a
mosquito is an evolved response to encourage us to avoid such things in
future?

Suddenly, it becomes clearer, and not so bad after all. I still have no idea
why I get bitten more often, but at least I see now why I suffer more than
others: I have just evolved further. Descartes nearly had it, three and a half
centuries ago; what he should have said was Prurio, ergo sum.

The last symbolic moment was standing at the check-in desk at Heathrow,
watching my suitcase disappear down a conveyor. In acknowledgment of this
separation, I received a small rectangle of cardboard. It carried a serial
number, together with the helpful information that it was not the luggage
ticket described in Article 4 of the Warsaw Convention, or the Warsaw Convention
as amended by the Hague Protocol.

My already reeling brain reeled a bit more. Warsaw Convention? Was that
another name for the Eastern Bloc? Or was it a pop group? Seeking explanation,
I read the small print on my ticket. There, I discovered that my journey
was covered by an international agreement called the Warsaw Convention,
and that if the aircraft crashed (which in my delicate emotional state
seemed almost inevitable) the maximum compensation I could expect would
be $20 000. In 1968, to someone with a one-way ticket and $125, that seemed
a lot of money, but I suppose it is really a rather poor return for being
reduced to a pile of ashes.

I survived the flight and many more since. I have also discovered a
little more about the Warsaw Convention. Before the convention was signed,
some airlines included in their conditions a complete denial of any liability
for death or injury to passengers. Everyone knew that flying was a dangerous
way to travel, so people who chose it were expected to do so at their own
risk.

At Warsaw in 1929 representatives of the world’s fledgling airlines
agreed that the airlines should be liable for damages, subject to a maximum
limit which would only not apply in special circumstances. Payments were
to be almost automatic up to that limit, without the passenger or his or
her representatives having to prove that the airline was at fault. The limit
set in 1929 was the equivalent of $10 000 – a large sum in those days. In
1955 the agreement was amended at the Hague to increase the limit to $20
000, with the United States opting out and insisting on a higher provision
for flights to and from its territory. It is the failure to agree a sensible
increase since 1955 that has left the compensation looking decidedly on
the parsimonious side, and led to its being criticised.

The Warsaw Convention is an example of no-blame compensation. It enables
people who have suffered injury, or their dependants, to be compensated
for that injury without the need to show that anyone was at fault. The way
it operates is a refreshing contrast to the legal system in England and
Wales, which is based totally on the adversarial approach. Here, to get
compensation for injury or damage, it is almost invariably necessary to
show that someone else caused the injury or damage, or at least allowed
it to happen.

Thus, when a group of local residents toured the Abbeystead Pumping
Station, in the Wyre Valley, Lancashire, on 23 May 1984 and were killed
or injured in a methane gas explosion, it was necessary for an Appeal Court
to pin the blame on the respected firm of consulting engineers who had
designed the works, even though few people believed that the engineers could
reasonably have foreseen that methane would enter the station. In this way,
the victims could be compensated by the consultants’ insurers. Had the
blame not been pinned on someone – if the explosion had been an ‘Act of
God’ – then, since God does not pay insurance premiums, the victims or their
relatives would have been left without compensation.

Cases like these earn large fees for lawyers. They also worry operating
companies and their insurance companies, who probably feel justified in
raising premiums – the Abbeystead ruling sent a shiver of fear through
those involved with supplying, or especially paying for, professional indemnity
insurance.

The case highlighted in New ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ recently (‘When polluters don’t
pay’, Comment, 18 December) is another example of the shortcomings of the
adver-sarial approach. Cambridge Water Company sought to prove that a tannery
was responsible for polluting one of the company’s ground-water sources.
The House of Lords decided that the tannery almost certainly was responsible,
but should not be liable to pay compensation because its operators could
not have foreseen the effect that their spillage of perchloroethylene would
have on the groundwater. After three costly hearings the water company is
back where it started, with a borehole it cannot use, but is worse off because
of the legal costs.

The polluter never really pays anyway. Had the tannery owners lost the
Cambridge case they would either have met the payment by putting up their
prices or, if all else failed, they would have gone into liquidation, leaving
their redundant employees and creditors as the real losers. As the tannery
won, the cost will presumably be met by the consumers of the Cambridge Water
Company. In either case, the costs are much greater than they need have
been because a lot of lawyers are much better off.

The answer in the US to this type of problem – the ‘Superfund’ – has
not been perfect, but at least the intention was sound. But is there not
a need for something of wider application, that would compensate innocent
victims of death and injury, as well as of pollution?

The Warsaw Convention has acquired a rather bad name in recent years
as some airlines have sought to use it to limit compensation payments to
victims and their families following air disasters. But that was not its
intention; it was intended to help passengers rather than discriminate against
them. It should completely remove the need for long and costly legal cases
which benefit no one but the lawyers. Is it not time that the idea was extended?

Michael Price is a hydrogeologist based in Berkshire.

Of course, the manufacturers never mentioned rival products by name.
A favourite trick was to compare their own offering with ‘another leading
brand’ that was referred to as ‘Brand X’. From the cradle – when a dull,
grey, Brand X nappy would be compared unfavourably with the dazzling white
nappy of the baby next door – through childhood (school shirts and blouses,
cricket whites) into adult life (office shirts, mechanics overalls), the
use of Brand X spawned social rejection and could seriously damage marriage
and promotion prospects.

One of the most important ingredients that Brand X lacked and all its
rivals possessed was an optical brightener. Optical brighteners are adsorbed
onto textiles during washing. They fluoresce, absorbing some of the ultraviolet
portion of the spectrum and re-radiating it as visible light. So clothes
washed in them look bright. Not that the manufacturers ever mentioned optical
brightener, of course. It was the ‘magic ingredient’ in new blue Omo, the
‘blue speckles’ in Daz, the ‘blue whitener’ in Tide.

One feature of the compounds used as optical brighteners is that they
are photodegradable – they decay on prolonged exposure to light. This means
that garments washed in them are not permanently brightened; the process
has to be repeated regularly, so housewives could not use the magic powder
just once and then go back to Brand X.

I discovered all this not as a result of extensive research carried
out to relieve the tedium of hanging around in the local coin-op, but because
an enterprising hydrologist realised that optical brighteners could be used
to trace water movement underground. Fluorescent substances such as fluorescein
have been used for years by cave researchers, for example, to trace where
streams emerge after disappearing below ground in limestone country.

Optical brighteners offer the same possibilities. They may be less colourful
than fluorescein, but this can make them more environmentally acceptable.
They are cheaper. And they have the advantage of being easy to detect. You
don’t have to wait around at the detection point for the water to turn yellow-green.
Just leave some new, unwashed cotton wool there, hanging in the water; check
it regularly with a portable UV lamp. If you get the ‘whiter than white’
effect, your optical brightener has got through.

At least, someone’s optical brightener has got through. One problem
is that with used soapsuds emerging from almost every kitchen waste pipe
in the country, there are now traces of brightener in most of our rivers.
So caution is needed in interpreting the data, as they say, especially if
you are working anywhere downstream of a sewage outfall or even a camp site.
But brighteners do have some scope in tracing how ground water moves through
more conventional aquifers, which are relatively free of pollution from
washing machine outlets.

Now, of course, the emphasis for detergent manufacturers has switched
from blue to green, as they strive to be seen as environment friendly. So
some washing powders are advertised not so much for what is put in as for
what is left out. Out go phosphates. Out go enzymes. And, although they
have never been shown to be significantly more toxic than common salt, out
go optical brighteners. This removal of unnecessary ‘evils’ does not, however,
extend to the price.

You can buy these ‘ecologically improved’ detergents all over Britain.
If they really catch on even if they do nothing much to help the environment,
they may at least make it possible for hydrologists to use optical brighteners
to trace water without having to worry about background levels. And if any
manufacturer is stuck for a name for one of these new eco-detergents, I
have a suggestion to offer.

They can call it Brand X.

Michael Price is a grey hydrogeologist.

A few years ago I saw a World in Action television documentary entitled
‘The betrayal of British industry’. It started with the familiar story of
the Midlands industrial family ‘made good’. Grandfather, an uneducated or
self-taught artisan, had a good idea for some manufacturing process. He
became wealthy, a factory owner, but stayed closely in touch with the workers
on the shop floor, able to do the jobs of any of them as well as they could,
always seeking ways to improve the product, and for these reasons earning
their respect. Father followed grandfather into the business, receiving
a good basic education and on-the-job training, separated from the workforce
by the dignity of his position more than grand father had been, but still
in touch with the processes.

But father and his wife had begun to move in higher social circles than
grandfather, and had ambitions for their children, who were sent to get
the best education that an industrialist’s money could buy, at public school
and/or university. It scarcely needs saying that the education was not an
industrial or technical one. They trained in the arts, and subsequently
wanted little to do with the family business.

I saw the programme in Canada, where it was considered to be sufficiently
important to be shown twice in a few months; I hope it had as good a reception
in Britain. It went on to suggest that the attitude of the third generation
of these industrial families was not an accident, that the Establishment
had begun to feel threatened by the success and prosperity of these horny-handed
(and mentally agile) sons of toil. And so the Establishment closed ranks;
there was, in effect, a conspiracy.

What the Establishment said to the industrialists, the nouveaux riches,
was that they could make money from industry, they could buy land and large
houses, own works of art and employ armies of servants, but that they would
never be accepted into Establishment circles unless they went to Its schools
and colleges.

So the children of industry went to the schools of the Establishment.
Once they did that, of course, they were part of the Establishment, taught
to think like Its members and to accept Its views and standards, part of
the self-perpetuating oligarchy that made Britain what it was and has kept
it that way ever since. And as part of the Establishment they kept industry
at arm’s length; it was acceptable to own a factory, to spend its profits,
even to visit it occasionally, but not to take any interest in its processes
or workforce. To be involved in industry, rather than merely funded by it,
was in short not a suitable occupation for a gentleman or lady, or for their
children.

As for industry, so I suspect for science. It was acceptable for a gentleman
or lady to be an amateur scientist, to collect butterflies or fossils; but
when even the members of the Establishment began to feel the need for earned
income, science was not an attractive occupation. ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´s and engineers
are doers (though it is to be hoped they are also thinkers); the Establishment
consists of rulers. Someone has to be in the factory, in the laboratory,
or draining the swamp, and good useful work it is too, but it is not for
Them. Besides, the factors, elaborators and swamp-drainers are good chaps
in their own way, salt of the Earth and all that, but you could not leave
them actually running the show, in complete charge of all the finances and
so on; for that you need people who have been trained – well, not so much
trained, actually, as born and bred – to rule, to be in command.

The problem now, it seems to me, is not just that scientists come from
the ‘lower strata’, but that being scientists keeps them there. I remember,
a few years ago, visiting Southampton with a senior colleague who, after
a career spent loyally in scientific public service, was approaching retirement.
It happened that our route took us past the liner QE2, which was in dry
dock. ‘You know,’ he mused as we looked at the ship, ‘we’ve got it all wrong
in this country. No administrator could design something like that, or a
jet engine, or the other things that bring wealth into the country. Yet
we let administrators with arts degrees make all the decisions.’

He was right, of course. But the reason that the decision makers are
trained in non-scientific disciplines is not just that scientists come from
the lower classes and are excluded from senior administration; it is because
they do not seem to want to be there. For an Oxbridge graduate with a degree
in history or philosophy or law it is no disgrace not to get a job as an
historian or philosopher or lawyer; to work one’s way up the administrative
ladder to be a managing director, permanent secretary or prime minister
will do nicely. But for a scientist to leave his or her chosen field of
study carries the stigma of failure.

The inevitable consequence of this is that the people who are good at
science tend to stay in science. The ones who leave – for administration,
accountancy or whatever – are the ones who are not so good. Or, to paraphrase
John Galloway, just as important, they are perceived to be not so good.
To leave science in such circumstances may cause many of them to do nothing
more than shrug their shoulders as they laugh all the way to the bank; for
others, one suspects that the shoulders are not so much shrugged as endowed
with a chip that may take many years to remove.

Some of these converts from science may have considerable personal qualities,
organisational abilities and communication skills, and may reach positions
of great influence. Having got there – into the heart of the Establishment
camp – they are in a position to do great good for science, and no doubt
some of them have done and will continue to do so.

But if they still bear a chip on their shoulders they are less likely
to do this. They are more likely to go along with the Establishment view
that career scientists, however able in their own fields, are lacking in
the personal qualities, organisational abilities and communication skills
that they themselves have; after all, if the scientists were good at these
things they would have realised how good the converts to administration
themselves were. So the science-trained administrator is likely to refer
to his or her training when it helps in a discussion or argument, but is
unlikely to defend science when it is under attack.

This sort of behaviour does not endear these ex-scientists to those
who have stayed in the profession; Mrs Thatcher’s attitude has found her
few friends among working (let alone working-class) scientists. It seems
to me that science in Britain is being held back by this conundrum: science
will not get a better deal until it is represented effectively in political
circles; few scientists who perceive themselves good at science want to
leave it for administration or politics; no one who leaves science because
he or she is perceived not to be good at it will go out of their way to
help science.

I do not know the answer, but there has to be a better way forward than
for one group, metaphorically, to keep hitting the other with its handbag.

Mike Price is a Midlands hydrogeologist, temporarily marooned in the
South.

I mention this now because we are approaching Lent – the period that,
roughly speaking, separates Shrove Tuesday from the end of the financial
year; not in the ecclesiastical calendar of course, but in the practical
one. If I seem to be confusing things secular with matters spiritual, let
me explain.

I was taught, as a child, that the practice of making and eating pancakes
on Shrove Tuesday had its origins in the days when Lent was observed more
widely and strictly than today; people would use up the eggs, cream and
other things that they would be giving up during Lent and have a last feast
before the days of abstinence. I suspect that, for a long time, many more
of us have indulged on Pancake Day than have abstained through Lent, although
the indulgence nowadays is probably just a shadow of what it was.

Now the period of Lent has taken on a new significance. For many organisations,
the financial year ends at the end of March or early in April. And for many
organisations, especially those in the public sector, this marks a rigid
separation of one year’s cash from the next. Money not spent in financial
year 1989-90 cannot usually be saved and carried over into the financial
year 1990-91, but must be returned, unused, whence it came. And, even worse,
any part of the organisation that does not spend its money this year will
not get a pat on the back and a little extra next year; it is more likely
to be told that it obviously does not need all its allocation, so will receive
a little less next year.

The converse, alas, is unlikely to be true. A deficit created by spending
over this year’s allocation will be immediatley deducted from next year’s
allocation. In short, if you spend too much this year you will be penalised
next year; spend too little this year and you will be penalised next year.

Faced with this difficulty, what is a responsible organisation to do?
Early in the financial year it will probably allocate most of its available
funds to its spending departments, but will keep a little in reserve for
emergencies. If the emergencies do not arise by about January or February,
it will probably decide to release the reserves as a ‘windfall’ for immediate
use rather than hand back the surplus to its paymaster in April. Project
officers throughout this responsible body will be told that the money they
have been denied all year is now available, provided that they can spend
it quickly.

So, financial affairs in these organisations provide a contrast to life
outside. Ordinary mortals live normally throughout the year and, if so inclined,
have six weeks of abstinence during Lent; public bodies generally have a
parsimonious existence for most of the year, and then have a brief period
of indulgence during Lent. During this period scientists at research institutes
can find themselves in a curious two-way exchange; as customers they may
be trying to find a supplier who can undertake quick delivery of equipment;
as suppliers of results they are being pressed to undertake research quickly
and report results so that their customers can spend money. Meanwhile, the
suppliers of scientific equipment are presumably rubbing their hands together
with glee as they experience what for them must be the equivalent of the
Christmas rush and the January sales rolled into one.

The aim of this financial rigidity, I assume, is to protect the taxpayers.
Protection they may get, but are they getting value for money? Picture the
research scientist who has been trying for several years, unsuccessfully,
to get the funds for a new piece of analytical equipment for his laboratory.
Suddenly, one February, he hears that because of an underspend in another
department the money is available but the equipment must be delivered, inspected,
invoiced and paid for by 31 March. Barely pausing for a celebratory cup
of canteen coffee he begins to contact suppliers. He knows the ideal machine:
the Gee-Whizz Scintillating Auto-opto-analyser, with reciprocating hinge-bockets
and on-line computer processing. Then his dreams are shattered: Gee-Whizz
Corporation are quoting a four-month delivery.

What is the scientist to do? Order from Gee-Whizz, plead his case (along
with a dozen other prospective customers in the same position) and hope
it achieves a miracle? Put the catalogue back in the drawer and hope the
money will be available next financial year? Settle for a rival product?
The despised Megacrap Inc Manual Mark II Analyser with one flashing light
and off-line abacus is vastly inferior to the Gee-Whizz instrument, but
is available off the shelf because the import agents have two dozen they
have been trying to shift for the past three years. Or does he order from
Gee-Whizz, cross his fingers, obtain an invoice ahead of delivery, sign
it and pass it through Accounts so that the money is spent before the deadline?
That way his laboratory gets the best equipment, but if something goes wrong
and he is found out, he gets the sack.

That innocent-sounding Lords’ amendment to the Water Bill would have
meant that one public body, the National Rivers Authority, would have been
free of this financial straitjacket and able to operate in a more discriminating
fashion.

It was, of course, defeated.

Michael Price is a hydrogeologist.

But are market forces responsible for the decline of public transport?
I fell to pondering this a few days ago, while sitting in a traffic jam
in Henley-on-Thames. I have been doing a lot of pondering in traffic jams
in Henley recently; as a place to ponder, it has for me almost surpassed
the bathtub. The reason for this, ironically, is that I chose to live in
a village, in Berkshire, with good rail and moderately good bus services.
While I was working in London this was fine, although it meant I spent two
and a half hours each day travelling.

Then the office was moved to Oxfordshire. By this time inertia had set
in, and there were all sorts of reasons for not moving. Besides, the new
office was only a half-hour’s drive away; I actually looked forward to being
a free agent, instead of being constrained by a BR timetable. A disadvantage
was that a car became essential: the public transport service between home
and office – a distance of only 25 kilometres – stretched the one-way journey
time to almost two hours.

That was 11 years ago. In the intervening time my home village has retained
a reasonable system of public transport – mainly, I believe, because it
serves as a dormitory for London. The village where I work, on the other
hand, is even less well served by public transport than it used to be. Market
forces, you see: more people have cars, and they find it more convenient
and more economical to use them than to go by bus or train.

I am certainly prepared to believe that more people have cars: most
of them seem to be in front of me every morning, waiting to cross Henley
bridge. But is car travel really preferable to public transport? When I
travel from home to one of the nearby larger towns, or to London, I nearly
always go by train. Social conscience apart, it’s much cheaper. Even when
four of us travel, the train comes out on top after allowing for the full
running cost of the car plus parking. Yet many of my neighbours go almost
everywhere by car. I suspect that this is in part habit; partly, it may
be a form of snobbery. But often, paradoxically, I think it is economics,
real or perceived. Perceived because the expense of a train or bus ticket
is immediate, whereas the expenses of a car journey, other than the costs
of petrol and parking, are deferred, with the costs of servicing, repairs
and depreciation not having to be faced for months or years. And real because
for many people motoring costs do not have to be faced at all. Many of the
cars around me are company cars, their total costs – fuel, servicing, insurance,
replacement – being met by an employer, even when the car is used for private
purposes. For those people with company cars it makes no sense to use public
transport when use of the car – except for parking charges – is free.

The recipients of company cars are always quick to point out that they
do pay for them. They pay tax as though the provision of the car were part
of their salary, and cars are often taken into account during salary negotiations.
So any criticism is likely to be met with the response: ‘Why shouldn’t I
use it? I’ve paid for it, haven’t I?’

This payment seems to me to be at the root of the problem. Anything
paid for on the basis of provision, rather than use, is immediately open
to abuse, and should certainly be excluded from the market forces argument.

An analogy would be a supermarket that charged a fixed annual fee to
its customers, instead of charging for what they actually took through the
check-out. Imagine that such supermarkets opened a few miles from our homes,
offering to selected people – mainly the better-off – the facility to take
as much food as they could carry in return for a reasonable fixed charge.

This might have some disadvantages, such as a limited choice of brands.
Nevertheless, if I were among the customers chosen, I suspect that I might
well put up with the disadvantages in return for the savings I could make.
I should, of course, take as many of my groceries as possible from this
supermarket – not to do so would be to ‘waste’ my annual fee. I should certainly
avoid buying things from the local corner shop, because this would in effect
mean paying twice for food. To prevent this, I think I might take more than
I really needed, to be sure of not running out.

In time, of course, this would have an effect on the local area. Local
shops would see their turnover fall and would raise prices. More people
would try to join the flat-fee system; if they succeeded, most of the small
grocery shops would probably go out of business, and those that remained
would charge exhorbitant prices to their remaining customers. There would
be even more incentive to overstock at the supermarket. No matter that I
threw half of the food away because it went rotten before I could eat it;
better that than have to nip down to the corner shop and pay way over the
odds for a jar of coffee. Besides, I would have paid for it, wouldn’t I?
Such a system would, in short, be inefficient, a dreadful waste of resources
and terribly unfair to the people who could not join it, many of whom might
in the end be forced to leave the area. But it is what you get for instituting
a system where you pay for what you might use rather than what you do use.
Is it so different from the provision and taxation of company cars? I can
manage without public transport to the office; if it came to the worst I
should have to move house. But what of people who cannot drive, or afford
cars? We hear a lot about the plight of the elderly, but the young face
the same problems. Recruitment of young staff in our area is becoming a
nightmare; those who do not live here cannot afford to move because of the
cost of housing, and many cannot travel from further afield without the
car that they also cannot afford.

Of course, some people need a car to do their job, not just to get to
it. But why not solve that problem by doing what most national and local
government agencies do – paying a mileage allowance to people using their
own cars for travel that is part of the job, and letting people make an
economic choice between car and public transport for private journeys? In
Britain, at present, most of us pay for our water by a ‘flat fee’, based
on the rateable value of our home. With privatisation of the water industry,
and the abolition of the rating system, that seems set to change to a fully-metered
charging system for water. If the government is in earnest about letting
market forces reign, and it really does want to do something about atmospheric
pollution and the greenhouse effect, it could exercise a similar approach
to transport: by removing the tax benefits to employers, and increasing
the tax contributions of employees, it could curb the spread of company
cars while there is still the occasional rural bus service in operation.

In the short term, this might generate a little extra revenue, which
could be used to offset the investment shortfall in British Rail that its
retiring chairman recently highlighted. More important, it would ensure
that all car users were treated on equal terms, and that we all had to choose
our mode of transport, for any given situation, on a basis of cost versus
convenience – a straightforward market-place decision. That way, public
transport might be competing with the private car on a more equitable basis.

With proposed transport legislation under discussion, and the Chancellor
of the Exchequer presumably already deciding on what to put in his Spring
Budget, now would be a good time for such changes. But don’t hold your breath
while waiting – it could lead to even faster asphyxiation than breathing
the exhaust fumes.

Mike Price is a hydrogeologist.